Jordan: Muslims must lead the fight against terrorism

Jordan’s King Abdallah II speaks during the opening of the third ordinary session of the 17th Parliament in Amman, Jordan, on Sunday.

Jordan’s King Abdallah II on Sunday said terrorism is the “greatest threat to our region” and that Muslims must lead the fight against it.

In a speech, he said confronting extremism is “both a regional and international responsibility, but it is mainly our battle, us Muslims, against those who seek to hijack our societies and generations with intolerance takfiri ideology.”

“Takfiri” refers to the radical Islamic practice of declaring one’s enemies to be infidels worthy of death.

The speech did not specifically refer to the attacks in Paris that killed 129 people, but Abdallah has previously condemned them as a “cowardly terrorist act.”

Jordan is taking part in the US-led airstrikes against the Daesh (Islamic State) group, which has claimed responsibility for the Paris attacks.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Sunday that participants at talks in Vienna on Syria have agreed that Jordan will coordinate efforts to compile a common list of terrorist groups in Syria.

“The work will be coordinated on supplementing the terrorist (groups) list, Jordan will be in charge of coordination,” Lavrov told reporters on the sidelines of a G20 summit of world leaders in the Turkish coastal province of Antalya.

In Jeddah, the secretary general of the world’s largest body of Muslim nations, the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), has condemned the terrorist attacks in Paris and has expressed the organization’s “unwavering solidary and support to France.”

OIC chief Iyad Madani said the organization firmly rejects any terrorist acts that violate the right to life and that seek to undermine the “values of freedom and equality that France has consistently promoted.”

On Sunday, Sunni scholars with the Muslim World League based in Islam’s holiest city of Makkah in Saudi Arabia also condemned the attack in Paris and one that took place in Lebanon a day earlier.

At the request of France, the European Union will hold a special meeting of its interior and justice ministers next Friday to assess the impact of the Paris attacks.

French Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve asked Sunday for the meeting, saying “our battle against terrorism must be, more than ever, steadfast,” and must be reinforced at the European level.

The EU presidency, held by Luxembourg, immediately obliged.

French President Francois Hollande has vowed to crush Daesh extremists.